Handling a large group?

Shadow64

Registered User
I recently took up the DM Helm recently in order to jump start a gaming group (everyone wanted to play, no one really, really wanted to DM), and it grew rapidly through word of mouth and johnny-come-latelys to be a whopping 9 member group (including me)!!

Thanfully, for all of us being strangers, we get along really well and so far the group is working out fantastically. Probably one of the best groups I've been a part of in a long time.

I just finished up my first adventure with them and while they had a great time I don't think I challenged them enough.

I undershot a lot of the encounters, which meant they swept through them, and then overshot the main "boss" of the adventure. Thankfully, they actually did enough damage to the boss to make it want to escape (which it did, and it will be coming back later!).

And combat - good lord - the combat took f.o.r.e.v.e.r......

So - what are the tricks to running a large group?
 

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Lanefan

Victoria Rules
Split it in half and run two groups. Now that the PCs know each other, they have reason to interact later if-when both groups are in town at the same time...you can have players and their characters switch parties, form different sub-groups...the fun never ends!

9 at once is just too big for everyone to get enough airtime, and until you've had some experience with it you'll have a hard time finding suitable challenges as the CR system won't help you very much at all. For major in-game events, though, having both parties re-unite for a session or two can be fun as well, provided you're up to the challenge. :)

Of course, this means you're running two sessions a week...

Lanefan
 

Splitting the group may not be a bad idea. IMO, nine is on the unwiedly side, if you're running full-blown 3E with minis, et cetera. (Not saying it can't be done, but I wouldn't want to do it; I'd do it under OD&D, though.)

That said, the usual advice would apply: have players roll to hit and damage dice at the same time, use notecards to help track initiatve numbers, be strict on keeping things moving and not allowing too many non-game tangents, et cetera.
 

Shadow64

Registered User
Egads - two groups at once? Sweet mama-jamma I barely have time to do one adventure a week! (and yes, so far i'm trying to do a weekly game - thankfully because of the large group it means that i can get two or three sessions for something i thought might take a session or session and a half).

So far I've been using notecards for both PC's and monsters and then i just flip through them, with a separate piece of paper for monster hitpoints.

I'm going to be doing up some PC cards this week so I can have everyones major info (HP, AC, Search, Spot, Listen, etc.).

For combat I'm going to be aiming for 10-15 seconds per person for them to act - if they start going longer then that then they might get skipped. (I've run this past the group and they are OK with it).

I'm thinking that since a few of the members have battle mats i can predraw out some of the encounters as well - i usually have a good 30 minutes from when people start arriving to when the game starts.

That's what I've been doing, we'll see how it goes over the coming weeks - I have a feeling we'll lose a few members just due to drive times and school, i Just we don't lose to many!
 

robberbaron

First Post
My experience of GMing for 8 PCs (and a couple of cohorts) is that the evening is all about combat. They don't have time for anything else.

Luckily, in some ways, the players stagger their arrival so I can get a lot of the out of combat stuff done before the group is assembled.
 

Ahnehnois

First Post
Splitting a big group (including splitting off a new DM) might help, and depending on the group makeup simply shaving the size down might be a good idea, but barring that...

Try to establish subgroups within the party. For instance, a ranger and a druid, or several PCs who follow the same god. That way you can engage several people at once for some activities.

Look at rules variants. Find out what types of things take too long and cut them down. If you are overworked maybe use the PCs roll all dice variant from UA. And have people preroll a lot of things so their turns go faster.

Prepare adventures thoroughly to save time in-game.
 

maddman75

First Post
I ran a game for 7, and I really don't recommend it. But if you insist, here's what I recommend.

Speed. With that many players you don't have time to screw around. Players should be thinking about what they want to do on their turn when everyone else is going. If you get to someone and they aren't sure, go to the next person in initiative. Come back to them in a minute. Further, if they are a spellcaster they *must* have the PHB open to the spell on their turn, or you'll come back to them.

Share Responsibility. Pick the biggest rules lawyer in the group, and declare them Rules Wrangler. If you can, have them keep a copy of the core rulebooks on hand, and any relevent sourcebooks. If you need something looked up, have them do it for you. (This is also handy if a rules lawyer is getting on your nerves - put them to work for you!). Another chore is initiative. Give one player a sheet of paper or dry erase board and have them get initaitive at the beginning of each combat from all the PCs. You have enough to do.

Forget CR. The whole CR/EL/XP system? It won't work for you. Throw the whole thing out, you're going to have to learn to eyeball it. Any single creature will die quickly under the PC's combined firepower. You're going to have to do a lot with mooks and lackeys. Otherwise anything with the AC and hp to not die in two rounds is going to be one-shotting the PCs. Just eyeball the creatures and give enough XP to level when you want them to level.

Of course, most of these are because of how complex D&D is. You'd have a lot more success running a simpler game.
 
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SavageRobby

First Post
I've run groups of 6-8 people fairly regularly - usually with Savage Worlds (or recently C&C) so the combat system is by nature a bit quicker, but I think some of these should still apply. Here are some suggestions, in no particular order:

Splitting up is bad. Whille tempting, I've found it makes it that much harder to focus screen time on each character, since now you've got two narratives to deal with, not one. Keep 'em together whenever possible.

Have players roll whenever possible. Have them roll to hit, damage and saves for the monsters and NPCs. It works really well in combat to have each player roll for their opponents. They might metagame a little ("Oh, so the BBEG is AC 25"), but really, so what? Have them roll every save of their own possible. I reserve the right to roll Search checks, but have them roll - and then roleplay - just about everything else.

Insist on readable dice. I have a player who likes to bring whatever new dice he bought, and 90% of the time they are totally unreadable from more than a foot away. Those aren't allowed anymore. At least the guy next to you has to be able to read the damn things.

Pay attention to space. Sometimes a good tactical challenge for a large group is simply a smaller corridor or some kind of bottleneck. (We had a great scene where the group was fighting an Otyugh, who was at the top of a staircase that was only 10' wide, so only so many characters could fight it at once. One made a heroic effort to slide under the Otyugh to get around it. Great fun.)

Mooks are your friend. With a large group, you don't really need more BBEGs, you just need more mooks (which makes it that much more valuable to have players make attack/damage rolls for their opponents). I like using a gang-up rule (stolen from Savage Worlds, +1 to hit for each adjacent ally engaged with the same enemy) for big parties - its both good for and against, but it helps increase the potency of mooks.

Use shortcuts whenever possible. For example, many of my mooks get rated in brackets; 2 HP, 8 HP, etc - or in DM shorthand, one-hitters, two-hitters, etc. So instead of bookkeeping HP, I keep tracks of hits (crits counting as two or even three), and the mooks go down in that number of hits.

Document important SOPs. What are the marching orders, outside, inside, 5' corridor, 10' corridor? Who usually carries what kind of weapons out? Who has the light sources? Etc. Once its documented, assume its that way unless specifically told otherwise.

Five second rule. When its your turn in combat, you have 5 seconds to tell me what you want to do. Don't hem or haw, or your character is automatically holding. Heck, when its your turn out of combat, same thing. Questions are fine, but indecision is not.

Treat out of combat a lot like combat. Out of combat can be a huge time drain if everyone is talking at once. I tend to treat it a bit like combat, and go around the table and ask each person what they're doing. I usually try to rotate one direction around the table and then back around the other, so that the same people aren't always first to speak. My general rule is that if more than two people want to talk at the same time, then I should probably go around the table.

Control the narrative. This is really a corollary to the above, but it merits saying again. Eight players at the table become random and unorganized (and more importantly, unfun) very quickly - your job is to keep that from happening. Have a non-verbal cue for when you want to talk without interruption/questions (such as when you're reading a description or something similar), be decisive when asked questions, assigning difficulties and making rulings, and make sure not to favor the loudest or more talkative (this last point is always important, but more important and more difficult with a bigger group).

Figure out when NOT to control the flow. For all of the notes listed above about being quick, and going around the table and controlling the narrative, there are a few good times to ditch that 100%. A good example is when multiple characters get into a discussion about something in the game (tactics, treasure, puzzles, etc). Let the in-character conversations rip. (I'm less generous about player conversations.)

Breathe every now and then. Its easy to get completely caught up running a game with that many folks. Or at least, is it for me. I make sure to take a few deep breathes every now. DMing is supposed to be fun.


I love DMing large groups - I really enjoy the dynamic of that many people working together for a common goal (to have fun).
 

Shadow64

Registered User
Thanks for all the advice - I'll have to run a great deal of it past the group before it gets a carved in stone ruling.

My last question would be - treasure. (huh - ended with a period - guess that is a statement).

Sounds like the two people who have run larger groups (Savage and Maddman) for a while do away with ecl/cr, so how do handle treasure? dole out enough to keep the group as whole on par with the character wealth stuff from the DMG?

I worry this might seem trite (hey - why did this little orc tribe have a +3 Sword with them? huh - oh well, chuck in the wagon o' magic and lets sell it later).
 

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